Sidekicks: The Transfer Student

by J. Torres, Takeshi Miyazawa (Illustrator)

Terry Highland isn't like other kids. Or is she? Sure, Terry is the daughter of an ex-superhero sidekick and, yeah, she has powers of her own, too, but when you're a new student at a school like Shuster Academy that's hardly out of the ordinary! Terry has a pyromaniac firestarter in homeroom, a werewolf in Geometry, killer robots in gym—and that's just before lunch! Sounds like a superteen's dream come true, doesn't it? There's just one catch: In order to make the grade at this school, you can't use your powers. So when three new vigilantes burst on to the scene calling themselves “Biff,” “Bam,” and “Pow,” it has the whole student body buzzing and the administration on the lookout for the kids that would dare to break the Academy's most essential rule. Can Terry and her friends solve the mystery without getting caught in the middle? SIDEKICKS turns the superhero genre on its head, following powered kids who would rather start food fights than fist fights and are more worried about what to do on a Friday night than the next contrived evil plot.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes

144 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2002

About the author

Comic book writer whose credits include the Eisner Award nominated Alison Dare, the YALSA listed Days Like This and Lola: A Ghost Story, as well as Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Love as a Foreign Language and Teen Titans Go, which garnered him a Shuster Award.

Reviews

[Roshan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sidekicks: The Transfer Student (2002)
Writer – J. Torres
Illustrator – Takeshi Miyazawa

Synopsis: Follows the life of Terry Highland, a teenager who joins a school for superheroes.

Sidekicks is a series that sets the base for teenage superheroes. It is very similar to the movie ‘Sky High’, but instead focuses more on students who have powers but are barred from using them.
From the limited chapters available the writers have done a good job setting up very interesting characters. The story has a fast paced nature to it and glides past the initial set up to other tales.
The stories are very teenage oriented which don’t really aim to surprise. The various set ups for the future are all wasted potential as the series never moved forward and was abandoned. So, we have a whole set of characters with a base idea of a story arc with nothing fleshed out.
The dialogues are cringe at times and felt very outdated. And the black and white illustrations make it harder for figuring out what is going on and keeping up with the flurry of various characters, all of whom seem to have a history the readers have missed out on.
Overall, this is a skip as there is no future. And the little that is covered by this book is not sufficient to hold interest.

RJG Rating – 1.75/5
Goodreads – 3.46/5

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I both liked and disliked this graphic novel at the same time. This book collects the three issues of the Sidekicks: The Transfer Student series, as well as the one-shot "Substitute" story and a small story originall published in a comics anthology. I liked the art, I liked a lot of the characters, and while the premise isn't exactly original (a high school to train individuals with super powers), it was a good take on the subject.

What I don't like about this book is that it feels like it is just the first chapter in a longer story, but this book is all there is. It says "volume 1" on the cover, but to the best of my knowledge there is no volume 2. So you have this setup, where the girl on the cover, Terry Sternin, transfers to this super-hero training academy, and at the end of the three chapters, she is just getting on her feet and accepting her situation. And then it ends. Lame. The substitute story was good, but it changes the focus to a new character, and the remaining short story feels almost like a "tech demo" for the concept. I picked this up cheap, so I got my money's worth out of it, but I can't really recommend it since the story doesn't go anywhere.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice setup for a series, but as far as I can tell, there was no continuation, which is really too bad.
The story takes place in a special school for teens, halfway between Hogwarts and the Xavier academy. Teens are required to learn to use their powers, but not to do so casually, and one of the subplots is about three of the teens secretly using their powers as vigilantes. Another is about the central character overcoming her fears, quite justified after a badly-run "danger room" scenario during her first visit to the school.
It's a good school story for teens, but with superpowers. Unlike some such stories, it's not just about those powers, or getting into superhero fights.

[Kristen Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great superhero graphic novel. I love the illustrations - so like Runaways. I'm hoping I can find some more of these sometime, because I'm falling back in love with superhero stories.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wanted to like it, found it almost unreadable.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun look at a superhero high. Unfortunately, it's also yet another series apparently abandoned by Torres.

[Jan Philipzig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Standard concept, cardboard characters, story does not go anywhere...

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Needed to be fleshed out. A lot. Was super confusing most of the time.